Brazil Biz Trip (July 2019) - Departure from Changi Airport

Since I've already organised and edited my Brazil photo album, I thought I'll start blogging about it and hopefully I can complete this within the month of April 2020! This was my second business trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil. And I was travelling with my boss, which means better flight and better accommodation! It was a full moon that night of my departure. It was always an unearthly hour flight, departing on Saturday late night, and reaching there Saturday early morning. I was flying Singapore Airlines, and had a lot of waiting time at the airport Terminal 3. 

Which so much time, I decided to enjoy the lounge since I was flying business class. I was shocked to see there where so many people in the Business Class lounge that I decided I will go back at a later time since my flight was like 1am plus or so. While walking on the 2nd floor of the airport, I came across many luxury shops that I wasn't aware off. Wow! Rich people have their own shops! Well, actually these shops are open to everyone, its just that I've never seen them before because I've never ventured to where all the business class lounges were. So it was an eye opener to me, whether the airport kept all their high end shops. 

Take for example this alcohol shop that was 2 storeys, and looked more like a museum than the usual duty free shop. It was mainly focus on whiskey and had all information on this drink. The price tag of the whiskeys were also at a way higher end than those I am usually used to seeing in the duty free shop. I wasn't going to buy anything from here, but I couldn't help stepping in to take a look at the mini exhibit on whiskey. The display was just too beautiful. 

I also stumbled across a 2 storey Louis Vuitton shop. I will have another entry on that cause I love the mini exhibition they had on the 2nd floor. Together with the alcohol and bag stores, there were many cosmetic stores and spa whether if you have a long wait, I guess you can do a full makeover while you are at the airport. I didn't venture into any of them as they all look kinda intimidating for my salary range. 

Nearer to midnight, I decided to head back to the lounge, betting that the crowd had thinned out by then. Lucky me, my hunch was correct! Finally I can relax and enjoy the business class lounge. The only problem was, I wasn't hungry. It was past midnight, and I was feeling kinda sleepy. But there was one thing I love about the SQ lounge, and that was their TWG teas!

So what I did was helped myself to some cheese, took a bunch of TWG tea and stuff them in my carry on bag, and made my self a nice Vanilla Bourbon Tea and sat down the enjoy it. Only one problem.... the tea was too hot! I tried myself to enjoy it, but the clock was ticking, and I had to rush to my departure lounge soon. But look at the photo below. How could you possibly rush tea?

I gave my self 30mins to rush to the departure lounge after finishing up, thinking that the gate closes 10mins before departure anyway, I should have plenty of time, right? Hahahaha. The gate closes 30mins before departure. I was one of the few that arrive last while they were closing up the gate! Close call! I was thinking how my boss would have reacted if I missed the flight with him and he had to go to Brazil on his own! It was his first trip there, so I was supposed to guide him along. What a scare! But thank goodness, all of us made it to the flight in time for our super long flight. 

Biz Trip Bangalore Shopping (May 2019)

There wasn't much to do once work was done for the day. So my boss took me to malls as he had so much errants and shopping to do. I was starting to realise what a shopperholic he was. This proves true even on our next trip together to Sao Paulo, but that's another collection of post that, hopefully, will be coming out soon! Anyway, there was one day we took the tub-tuk to the biggest mall in Bangalore, Phoenix Mall. I was pretty blown away. It was a super modern mall, and had all the big brands there. I did manage to do some shopping while I was there. Below are some of the things I got for myself as well as friends and colleagues.

First off, I told my boss I wanted to go to a bookstore. He gamely took me to one on the first day after work. I got the above three books. Each was like, less than SGD10. I got the first one from left to right because I love Rumi's poetry, and am hoping that this would be just as good. I'm a sucker for ancient romantic poems. Next was a 2-in-1 book by a religious guru? I don't know, but I do watch his talks from time to time on youtube and really enjoyed watching him talk. And lastly, a book recommendation by my ex-vendor/colleagues/friend. 

We also took time to go groceries shopping for snacks. I got the Lay's masala chips which is so addictive. There was an offer on and they gave the Lay's Maxx Chilli chips which was also equally addictive. I also got some Bru coffee cause it taste super nice and cause like SGD2 per glass in Singapore! 

Lastly, just before we left, I got all the super sweet condense milk candies from a shop just outside the airport. My boss recommended it as it's kinda like a cooperation that helps farmers with small volume of cows. All in all, I am always happy to travel to new places. I guess that would me one of the things I will miss most when I decided to go back and work from a local company. I am still pondering whether I would regret it. But since I am "sundowning" myself soon, let's contribute back to my host country one last time! lol. 

Biz Trip Bangalore (May 2019)

Since there is no more travelling for 2020, I've decided to start blogging about my past trips to, clear my back logs, re-live those wonderful trips, and to get my creative flow going. So for today and tomorrow, I will be blogging about my last minute business trip to Bangalore India in May 2019. I say "last minute" because it was totally not in my project schedule, and I even had my mum staying with me at that time. I had to abandon her for my 4 days trip and almost missed out on my Phantom of the Opera Musical which I bought VIP tickets for!

Flights were also fully booked since it was last minute, and one of the budget airline in India also decided to cease operation about the same time. So I could only manage a Thai Airways transiting at Bangkok. I didn't really minded, cause believe it or not, Thai Airways is my favourite airlines! Why? The next next photo will tell you why. 

I flew off Sunday evening just before sunset and caught this beautiful view of Singapore and Malaysia. It was such a powerful photo to me cause Malaysia is my homeland, and Singapore is my current home, separated by the Straits of Johor. Teary eye moment there....

And as I was saying, Thai Airways is my favourite airline. It was also the first flight I ever took to Phuket when I was a teenager. The reason I love it so much was the serve the best food in any airline I've ever flown! And that includes business class in Singapore Airlines! I'm a sucker for Thai curry I guess. Plus the Thai hospital is just so gentle and lovely. 

I arrived in Bangalore past midnight, and had to trust the hotel driver to deliver me safely to the hotel. There is always these horror story of ladies travelling alone in India, and how it was not safe to do so. This was my 4th trip to India, so I wasn't so nervous, yet the concern was always there in the back of my mind. Lucky for me, nothing happen. I reached the hotel, and was more than happy to settle in as I had to work the next day. 

Hotels in India has the best hospitality. It's like if you are rich in India, everyone treats you like royalty. The room was big, but with not much view. It was a Sheraton Hotel under Marriott Group. My boss wanted to stay here cause it was a newer hotel than Marriott. Plus it was also just opposite our office. 

The bathroom comes with a long bath, which I totally adore. I could soak in a bath daily, a bad but relaxing habit from my days traveling around Japan. It is just such a soothing ritual. I remember my last trip when I was in Gurgaon, they also have a long bath there, and it just washes away all the stress of the day when you reach home (a.k.a. your room).

Fluffy towers and wonderful ayurveda toiletries are just the norm in India hotels, and I love those as well as they always smell so wonderful. 

The hotel was a guarded property, and there was a mall just opposite it. We have our breakfast daily before headed to work. It has a pool and stuff, but I spend most of my time after work going out with my manager as he took me to wonderful restaurants to try out the food and shop for food. He seems to enjoy it so much there. I too enjoyed the food. I recall the tandoori panner we had that was just out of this world!

India hotel always have some small personal touch they give to their guess. On our last day before checking out, they even presented my boss with a "Happy Journey" pancake for his breakfast. None for me though. I guess they knew who is the boss! 

Lastly, here's a view of how near by office is :)

March 2020

Covid19 has gone global by March. So much so that we had to cancel and reschedule our planned trip to Gold Coast. It was just one week before we were due to fly off that Australia announced that anyone travelling in would need to be quarantined 14 days! Lucky for us, we have not made any lost by cancelling our trip. I felt so grateful that all the hotels and airlines were so understanding in allowing refunds and rescheduling. I initially wanted to try for May, but am now glad I didn't. It looks like it's going to be a long battle with Covid19. Hopefully I get to visit by the 2nd half of the year. 

Since I couldn't travel, I could only enjoy myself in Singapore. Although the public was advice to stay home, there were a lots of promotion going around. One of it was a 50% off for Garden By the Bay and Floral Fantasy. It was Cherry Blossom season, and I've never experience a 花見"Hanami " before. I've also wanted to visit the Floral Fantasy in January but the Cruise departure time was too early that time, so I didn't quite made it there. But now, everything was 50% off! I felt so generous that I took the whole family there! (me, my husband and my in-laws).

One of my bucket list item is to experience Cherry Blossom in Japan once day. And I plan to visit there for 3 months to have a Cherry Blossom overload! I am thinking of going in February, and stay till end of April. It would be lovely to travel around Japan. I am planning to do this when I quit my full time job for real. Hopefully that will be soon, another year or two. But in the mean time, Garden By The Bay was good enough for me. There were really beautiful and romantic. I was glad I went to visit. Due to Covid19, it was also not crowded. It's a win-win situation for me. 

For some reason, I also started baking in March. It started with cinnamon rolls, and quickly escalated to coffee rolls, hot dog buns, peanut nutella, cranberry cream cheese, nutella orange etc. I love the smell of bake dough. I love the touch of dough. Overall it is a very relaxing hobby. It doesn't cost a lot, and it's filling. It also saves me money cause I can eat the buns as a meal, as a snack, or as weekday snacks. So now I'm baking buns every Sunday afternoon. And it goes so well with my coffee or tea! Which bring us to the next highlight of the month - Coffee!

We drink really gourmet coffee at home. I don't drink coffee outside cause its expensive, and most of the time I don't like the taste. My husband makes me latte in the morning from all the oversea coffee beans I got him last year. We are pretty much hooked on Ethiopian and Brazilian coffee and wonder what we are going to do once all our stocks are gone. It's not like I could just fly there regularly to top up those beans! But lucky for me, I am also hooked on these Japanese drip coffee. There are so soothing and delicious!  I only drink these during the weekend as a form of rewarding myself. The nicest so far is a brand call Doutor coffee which I got from Kyoto last year. I have since finished those, and am now back to my regular UCC brand. It is my small pleasure in life. I drink them black, no milk, no sugar. And oh how they calm my nerves! 

Lastly, here is another beautiful coffee from one of our favourite French bistro call Cafe Du Vinn at Shaw Tower. I treated my husband to a set lunch when I got my bonus from my last job. The steak there was equally delicious! We had a lovely day at Orchard with less crowd than normal due to Stay Home advice from the government. Did so much shopping and felt so relax. I wish Orchard could be like that all the time.... I would enjoy shopping there so much more.

February 2020

I am blogging this on a long weekend in Singapore. Covid-19 is still spreading life wild fire in Singapore. But it's ok, I am happy to just stay home, cook and enjoy some peace and quiet time alone.  So I thought I'll use this weekend to update my blog. Ever since I started work, this blog has been dormant. It is not that I have forgotten about it. At times when I see the casualty in Italy, I thought I would blog about my trip there as a reminder of what a beautiful country it is, and how sad it was that the people there are dying due to the virus....I have three days off, let see if anything along that line happens. But first, the monthly summary of my life.

I started a new job in February. It was a new "old" job. I went back to my previous previous company again to, as one of my colleague puts it, serve my final "national service" to Singapore. I guess it was a good time to change, since with the virus going on, I don't have to spend my life travelling from one part of the country to the other on a daily basis to work. Plus, travelling has been more or less banned, so remaining in my old company would have been purposeless. 

For the month of February, the top highlights of my month doesn't quite seems to gel with the photos I have decided to put in this entry. For example, I decided to mark Chinatown to remind myself that it was the year of the rat. I took this photo when visiting Julie who was visiting from Bangkok at that time. The virus just started then, and you could see the impact of it in the eerily empty Chinatown.

The virus doesn't seems to impact me in February. It would be because I just came back from Hong Kong in a cruise. I guess I thought if I could survived that, I could survive Singapore, cleanest country in the world! Ha! All that was about to change in March and April!. But as I said, I felt safe travelling around when others were locked away at home. Me and my "friend" even went to Smoke and Mirror for Valentine's Day. She treated me, to a cocktail bar, one that I've always wanted to go to. So it was kinda hard to say no to that. The verdict? The cocktail was a let down. But the ambiance, the service, the food was good. I wish the cocktail was a lot bigger and nicer, cause they charge you so much for such a small size too!

Two other highlights was bringing our new British friend Tom and Trish for dinner in a typical Singapore food court and letting them visit our humble HDB. We didn't take any photos together as we hardly knew each other then. They were just the couple who sat at the table next to us in the cruise. We saw them for 2 weeks and started casual conversation with them. We have since connected via Facebook and it is nice to look into another family's life. 

Me and my husband also had a movie day out in February to clear all our 1-4-1 GV movie vouchers. We watched the Korean Oscar winner Parasite, and Birds of Prey. Parasite was mind blowing and depressing for me. I love the movie! 

And finally back to the last burger photo above. As businesses and restaurants were being hit by the spread of Covid19, some restaurant started offering deals and promotion. I decided to support the local businesses as the town was visibly empty during weekend. We went to a German Restaurant twice for their burgers at a discounted price. They offered so many vegan burger options there that I just couldn't help myself to try them. Verdict? One of the best vegan burgers ever! I need to bring all my vegetarian friends there! So yeah, I just wanted to put that on record :)

To sign off, I would like to confess that I have been taking advantage of the fear of Covid19 in February to visit the town area as it was less crowded and quiet. It was an introvert's dream come through to have the town all to yourself. But the situation has gotten much worst now in April. I no longer go out except for work (yes, I still have to go work. Something about essential worker and bullshit along that line....).  The result of it all, I have been cooking and baking non-stop lately, and will start posting those creation here soon. But if you can't wait, I started using my Instagram account as a food diary recently, so you can also catch my updates there at "cordy.cord.3".